Wraithlord... finished!

Well, at last some progress. While painting my Wave Serpents, I made a break and started painting something else, and the Wraithlord happened to be laying around. That's something very usual in my painting schedules: I simply don't respect them too much. Luckily, this time I've managed to finish this model before jumping to a different one. The fact that it has just taken me four days has helped, indeed.

The model had been assembled for over a year (yes, I know, shame on me). I made some minor conversions on it: cutted and replaced the leg to give an illusion of movement (as if it were actually walking or "advancing"), and also modelled some "lightnings" on the wraithsword (a personal signature in several of my models). I was strongly inspired by Jamie's miniature on Coolminiornot, as I stated in a post over a year ago.

For the paintjob I used the very same techniques I had applied on the rest of my army: stippling of different blues with bone as the contrast colour, and details in red (spirit stones). Additionally, I tried something different with the wraithsword (which has no actual effect in gaming terms): I didn't want something too striking as the sword was just a detail and not the focal point of the model, while at the same time I wanted to get something somehow eye-catching. So I decided for a turquoise colour (which is blue-ish after all, as most of the model) and painted some reflections on the blade. I think I've succeeded, and I'm really happy with the result.

It's not completely finished, the base needs a few more washes and a bit of grass, and I want to paint a couple of white stripes somewhere (my usual army markings), but who knows when will I do it...

Ok, enough chatting, it's time for some pics. A little Photoshop et voilà. Hope you like them!

Painting for dummies – easy OSL

While working my eldar vehicles, I had to make a decision when it came to paint the cockpit and the pilot. You know, it is a well detailed part of the model, but it will be rather obscured once its cover has been glued on place. Besides, being that cover made out of plastic (and not true glass, which is more transparent), the painting below won’t be really appreciable, and that is really a pity.

So instead of painting it “normally”, I decided to think of a quick and effective way to bring it out with a minimal effort, and I came with the idea of an easy OSL (Object Source Lighting) effect suppossed to be caused by the glow of the screen in front of the pilot. I painted it in less than five minutes and using only five colours (Chaos Black, Dark Angels Green, Snot Green, Scorpion Green and Skull White).

So here’s the recipe:

• Paint the whole cockpit Chaos Black
• Drybrush it all heavily with Dark Angels Green
• Drybrush it again with Snot Green, not so heavily and concentrating mainly on the areas in which the ligh coming from the screen would fall most (front of the face, chest and inner arms)
• Drybrush it lightly with Scorpion Green in the main focal areas of light impact (front of the face and hands)
• Paint the screen Snot Green
• Paint some lines (references or axis) and dots (objectives or enemies) in the screen with Scorpion Green
• Paint the center of the dots with a mixture of Scorpion Green and Skull White to bring them out

Et voila! The cockpit is done and ready for action. Fear the Serpent, mon-keigh!